The week after Ashleigh’s funeral had been unusually warm for spring, but suddenly the city had turned grey. Dark clouds appeared late morning, and by early evening there were storms — lightning, thunder, and heavy downpours. On the street, neighbours discussed Melbourne’s volatile weather, the predictions for a long, hot summer, and the ongoing fears that climate change was increasing the risk of bushfires. At home the conversation was minimal, reduced to the organisation of meals and Paolina’s doctor’s appointments. Most afternoons they made their way to their son’s house and sat with whoever happened to be there — Alex, Rae, Jane, Rae’s parents, neighbours, friends, extended family — in the kitchen or the front living room, keeping company. But all Antonello wanted to do was to be alone.
Some visitors spoke at length, didn’t stop speaking, told their stories about Ashleigh or avoided mentioning Ashleigh at all and instead recounted car accident after car accident, tragedy after tragedy, the horrible things that happened to other people. Alex came into the room to greet each new visitor, his face expectant, but after a few minutes, unable to sit still, he wandered off, into the garden or the garage or the shed. If Rae was in the room, she was the focus, the one they hugged, the one they wept over. Rae let them. She was an experienced school principal; she understood how to keep her emotions contained. In the gaps and silences, she talked about going back to work (maybe tomorrow, maybe next week) and she talked about the court case (we need to make sure that girl pays for what she’s done). In the bleakness, some visitors sprang at these statements, adding their own commentary: Drunk drivers should be locked up for a long time, throw away the key I reckon, they have to be taught a lesson. Those that might’ve spoken for Jo, who might’ve empathised with her, kept silent.
During these afternoons, life was in a holding pattern. Beyond it was the future, what people referred to as getting back to a normal life or moving on, something none of them could imagine. And so they continued gathering, as if by coming together they could stop time. Or spin it backwards.
When Sam rang, Antonello was listening to Rae’s mother sharing her memories of Ashleigh as a toddler. Beverly was a stocky woman in her seventies. Everything about her was large — her breasts, her belly, her head, with its crown of unruly grey hair — except for her legs, which were slender and shapely. She sat on the sofa next to her daughter, holding Rae’s hand, patting her arm. Her legs were stretched out across the rug. Antonello sat opposite and stared at her feet, at her strappy sandals, at her toenails painted a soft yellow.
‘Who was that? I heard the phone,’ Alex asked as Antonello came back in.
‘Sam. An old friend.’
‘I’ve never heard you mention him,’ he said.
‘We worked together once. It was a long time ago.’
Alex shrugged and left the room.
As a child, Alex was enthusiastic and overly energetic. He’d had lots of friends. Once, when he was six, three of his friends demanded he pick his best, best friend: they wanted him to choose and he couldn’t decide.
‘Dad, who is your best friend?’ Alex had asked him.
‘Your mother.’
‘But what about a boy, a friend who is a boy?’
‘Your Uncle Joe. Your Uncle Giacomo.’
‘No, someone else,’ Alex insisted. ‘Outside the family? Why don’t you have other friends? You know, like from work? Or from football?’
‘I’ve got responsibilities and I’ve got you and your sister and your mother, and my mother and father, and I don’t have time.’ Antonello wanted to say, Stop asking me all these questions, you little pest. But he knew that even Alex could see the flaw. What kind of man has no friends?
The following afternoon, when Antonello arrived at the Vic, Sam was already sitting at a table, a beer in front of him. On Antonello’s side was a glass of red wine. ‘I took a punt — ordered you a merlot.’
‘Thanks. Still my drink of choice. I used to pretend I liked beer, I thought it’d make me more Australian, but I gave up that a long time ago.’
‘Unfortunately, I like it too much. More ocker than the ones born here.’
In the bar, they were the sole customers. A middle-aged waitress carried a tray of salt and pepper shakers and placed a pair on each table. The barman and the chef played pool. From the games room next door, there was the constant beep and chime of the pokie machines, the clink of coins against the metal trays, the jackpot jingles and old-time tunes, vaguely familiar. Flashing lights reflected on the mirror above the bar.
It was a gloomy pub. Poorly renovated several times since the 1970s, the layers of change were visible, one on top of the other. Like make-up clumsily applied over scar tissue, it failed to camouflage its faults.
‘Don’t remember the bar ever being this empty,’ Antonello said.
‘No more factories around here, no more punters,’ Sam said.
It was difficult not to drift off into the past. Antonello had spent so many nights sitting at the bar with Sam and Slav, watching Bob play pool. Bob had a knack for it and there was usually some younger bloke willing to challenge him to a game. They’d throw a coin or two on the table, but no one ever took Bob’s money. Antonello remembered gathering around the bar after every shift. The pungent mix of sweat and beer, the arguments — mostly about football — and the yelling, the stupid jokes and the raucous laughter. The dead were back, sitting at the bar. They swung around to face him and raised their glasses.
‘Just a few compulsive gamblers now,’ Sam said, nodding towards the pokies. ‘Don’t come here anymore? This would still be your local?’
‘This or the Blarney. But I don’t go to the pub much. Paolina dragged me here one night about ten years ago — she wanted to have dinner and play the pokies. I couldn’t stomach it. I kept expecting to see Bob or Slav at the bar. I could hear Bob’s laughter… We didn’t even stay to eat.’
‘Should we go somewhere else?’ Sam asked, picking up his beer and taking a long swig. Sam had put on weight, but he wasn’t fat; there was just a hint of a beer belly under the blue Australian Workers’ Union windcheater. Antonello stared at his face: there were a few frown lines, some wrinkles, the flesh around his cheeks sagging, but he was still so familiar, with the broad Roman nose, the bushy eyebrows, and those luminous hazel eyes.
‘No. I was going to suggest somewhere else, but nowhere else seemed right, either.’
‘I’m surprised you’re still living in the area,’ Sam said. ‘I thought you might’ve shifted away. A lot of us did.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Geelong. I work out of the office there and live in a flat — small place, with a view of the bay from the bathroom window.’ Sam smiled, bringing his hands close together to show the narrowness of the view.
‘Paolina wanted to move. But I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.’ He didn’t tell Sam that the further from the bridge he was, the worse the nightmares. After Alex and Nicki had moved out of home, Antonello and Paolina went on a trip to Europe. They booked a twenty-day tour and spent time in Sicily with their extended families. Every night he was away, Antonello dreamt of the bridge. Not the falling bridge he’d witnessed, not the half-constructed bridge, but the finished bridge crowded with peak-hour traffic. He watched the piers crumbling, the roadway collapsing over and over again, cars and people dropping into the river like dead birds. He had those nightmares at home too, but he could get up, go outside, and see the bridge. Calm himself down. Away from it, the anxiety clung to him, and there was no reprieve. He was bound to the bridge, bound to living under its shadow.